Mabuhay Gardens to Reopen, Attempt to Remain Upright Under Weight of Expectations

V. Vale, the renowned punk publisher, thinks he remembers the first show he saw at Mabuhay Gardens. It was late 1976 or early 1977, and the bill featured the Nuns, one of San Francisco’s first homegrown punk bands, as well as the Dils, from San Diego. “Then they moved immediately to San Francisco,” says Vale of the latter band, “because there was nothing happening in San Diego.”

In San Francisco, something was happening: On a stage in the lower level of a Filipino restaurant in North Beach, West Coast rock ‘n’ roll was exploding into a primal new sound. “The Mabuhay was the cauldron where punk rock began in San Francisco,” says Vale, who’s in his early 80s now, though he prefers not to discuss specifics. 

It was at Mabuhay — or “the Mab,” or “the Fab Mab” — that Vale began shooting photos for his seminal punk zine, Search & Destroy. (Initial printing costs were covered by $100 each from Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti; City Lights bookstore was just up the street.)

Nearly 50 years later, on the evening of Oct. 3, Vale will once again make the three-minute walk from his apartment on Romolo Place to a show at 435-443 Broadway. A two-story building originally constructed in 1919 as an Italian men’s club, the event space has gone by several names in its 106 years of existence, including Fame and Broadway Studios. It has also spent many of those years — especially since the original music venue closed in 1987 — shuttered and empty.